


The Flash Seen Across the Universe

by Ernmark (M_Moonshade)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Gen, Juno and Rita's friendship, Juno's got some major trauma he's still dealing with, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:08:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8274092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/Ernmark
Summary: Juno finally has Rita look into Peter Nureyev.





	

“Rita, you ever heard of a Peter Nureyev?”

I say it as casually as a third drink on a weekend. I expect a quick “never heard of ‘im,” followed maybe ten seconds later by the world’s most thorough database search. But that doesn’t happen.

She goes quiet. Then:

“Well, sure,” she says it careful, like she’s not sure if that grenade at her feet was a dummy or if she just didn’t count long enough. “You been thinkin’ ‘bout the War, boss?”

Most days I try to avoid it, actually. Just the word is enough to make my brain try to take a sharp left into oncoming traffic. I take a moment to collect myself and empty my mind and put up road blocks before the memories can start their parade through my skull. I’m safe in my office. The only person here is Rita, who knows how to handle me and knows to make tracks if she can’t. There’s a full bottle of scotch in my desk. Still, I toss her my keys and phone as a precaution. She catches the phone, but fumbles the keys.

“What’s Nureyev got to do with the War?” I ask.

She crouches nervously, taking a few beats too long to pick up the keys and get up again. “Was that not what you were thinkin’? I can look up the rest, and—“

“Rita.” It’s not supposed to sound like a threat. It does anyway, and I hate myself for it.

“It’s just I thought you knew, is all,” she hedges. For a few moments she looks like she’s trying to juggle the things I’ve given her, then gives up and pockets the phone. She rubs my keys between her fingers like they’re some kind of talisman. “You remember that Archduke Heshima?”

My mouth feels like cotton. Archduke Heshima of Betelgeuse was on a diplomatic tour to cement relations between our systems, starting with Mercury and working his way to Pluto. That trip ended on Mars. It was the first act of aggression in a war that brought the whole galaxy to its knees. They say the laser that hit him was the flash seen across the universe.

Rita continues, because there’s not a lot of choice. “Peter Nureyev is the name of the guy who shot him.”

I felt like I’d swan-dived into a black hole, like my feet were stuck on the ground and my head was stretching out into spaghetti right in front of me and the whole world slowed down to a crawl.

“I mean, it’s probably a fake name and all, but that’s as far as Dark Matters was able to trace it.”

I cycle those other names out, but by now I’m skilled enough not to leave a trace with them. But my birth name… links me to things it would be best if everyone forgot.

“They kept it all hush-hush, you know. Them and a few other governments. I think they were waitin’ until they caught the guy.”

And then what did they have planned for him? Not Hoosegow, that was for sure. No safe little walls and iron bars for the man who single-handedly tore the galaxy in half.

He knew I was in the war. Even if he hadn’t looked into me, he must have known. Every single person you see on Mars, flip a coin and odds are in your favor they were somewhere on the front lines.  He knew.

That was my life he ripped apart with his own hands, and he—he flirted with me. Kissed me. Acted like this… like everything…

I don’t see Rita coming until she’s under my arm. My fist heads for her face out of pure reflex, but I recognize her before I can put too much force behind it, and she’s no pushover herself. She catches my fist and deflects it safely away.

“C’mon, Mista Steel,” she says gently, and eases me into my chair. I try to get up, but my legs feel like the bones have dissolved right out of them. “I could be wrong, ya know. I was only even looking them up because of a thing that Agent Wire said, and…” She starts on a long, convoluted story that devolves into summaries of the last dozen shows she watched. I stop listening to anything but the cadence of her voice.

There’s nothing silky or smooth about Rita. She’s rough and shrill and completely sincere, with no filters to soften her and no masks to hide behind.

That's why she's the only person in this goddamned galaxy that I still trust.

**Author's Note:**

> Juno Steel’s stories are very Noir, and as such call back a lot to the cultural aesthetic of the 1920s and 30s– and that was an era defined by three huge events: Prohibition, the Great Depression, and WW1. I can’t make arguments right now about the first two, but we’ve already gotten several references to The War. 
> 
> Which is where this fic came from.
> 
> The Archduke is (maybe obviously) a reference to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination kickstarted WW1. That event wasn't the only cause, but it was the spark that lit the pile of metaphorical sawdust doused in gasoline that was the Western World at the time.


End file.
